City Analysis

How can one perform an urban analysis clustered to allow cities to be viewed through an Environmental Lens, a Social Lens, and an Economy & Governance Lens, and then integrated to combine all relevant disciplines and cover the complete spread of perspectives?

City Analysis Methodology

The rise in the influence of sustainability principles has resulted in an almost overwhelming number of ways of defining, measuring and assessing sustainability. For sustainability measurement to be accurate it must have a clearly defined ‘sustainability space’, be designed for the context in which the measurements are to be taken, evidence a clear causal chain and make explicit interdependencies. The degree to which current sustainability methods meet these criteria is varied.

Cities play an important role in a country’s ability to become more sustainable. In order for cities to move towards sustainability, it is important first to understand how they function and how well they perform. This provides a baseline against which to identify and prioritise aspects that would benefit from change and assess the impact of any proposed solutions. Gaps in performance can then be identified, barriers to achieving a sustainable future elucidated and robust solutions designed and assessed. Care must be taken, however, that in moving towards a more sustainable future the liveability of cities is not compromised.

The City Analysis Methodology (CAM) is an innovative urban analysis framework for holistically measuring the performance of UK cities with regard to well-being, resource security and CO2 emissions. It demonstrates the need for, and defines the parameters for, sustainability solutions (decisions being made now in the name of sustainability) that do not compromise wellbeing and provides a model for other countries to leverage the sustainability of their cities.

Resources

Their impacts on wellbeing and economic development are complex due to their interplay with national regulations and internationally negotiated treaties. Our rapidly expanding resource use has created environmental impacts that present us with the most challenging agendas for the 21st century. Proceeding with existing production methods and consumption habits, exacerbated by the ever increasing global engines of growth, will further erode our scarce resources increasing pollution, contributing to and creating global economic instabilities. Hence, transformative solutions to low-carbon resource production combined with demand reductions will need to be at the core of our policies, not only to address resource scarcity but also the impact of our changing climate.

To fully understand how energy, water, waste and food flow within and through our cities we need to consider not only their quantities, but also the reasons for their movement (what is causing their demand), who is paying for them and who controls them. In this way we not only understand how an energy source such as oil moves into, around and out of cities, but also what forms it takes (e.g., gasoline), what those forms are used for and hence how it is consumed (e.g., to power cars) and why the demand for those forms exists (e.g., to travel to work).

We must also understand the need for these resources in the first place, how locally controlled resources increase (or otherwise) resource security, the need for and use of local materials, and alternative paradigms for resource security.

Ecosystem Services

Urban living is currently made possible through the goods and services derived from both local and distant natural systems, often subsidised by the extensive use of fossil fuels. For example, crops are typically farmed outside of cities, with fossil fuels underpinning the fertilization of soils, crop harvesting and processing, transport to consumers and the removal of the resulting waste. Urban living is also made more liveable by natural systems within and adjacent to cities. Parks provide accessible recreational space, whilst allotments can facilitate community development. Green spaces have health benefits as well, such as removing pollutants from the air. Biodiversity underpins many of these benefits and changes to the diversity of natural systems may alter their ability to supply key services.

Transitioning to low-carbon living is likely to affect how key services are supplied, with potential positive and negative impacts on wellbeing. Green areas and parks will potentially increase in importance as they provide cooling (e.g., shading from trees, cooling effects of lakes and fountains) as summers get warmer with climate change

There is therefore a need to fully understand how ecosystem services and the biodiversity that underpins them are currently delivered to cities; and to explore how these might change in a low-carbon, resource secure future. It is also important to explore how natural systems can play a (vital) role in successfully delivering these future cities.

To be published in Urban Design and Planning themed issue: the ‘art’ of urban design

Christopher Boyko, Joanne Leach, Rachel Cooper and Chris Rogers are leading a paper that has been accepted for a 2014 special issue of the academic journal Urban Design and Planning. This paper builds upon the work...

The initial development of the City Analysis Framework is the primary activity in the project's first twelve months. The first step is to understand what city analysis methodologies currently exist, what they cover and how they work. Parallel to this is unpicking what we need to know to establish a...